Forget the movies, music videos are the home of horror

The majority of horror writers will list many a horror film as having been an inspiration or a means of enjoying horror. The films were often what summoned them to the dark side. I’ve watched a number of horror films but I forget them easily, don’t often discuss them and generally they lie second to books and music (sacrilege, I hear you say!). This has often made me feel a fraud but I don’t care anymore, it doesn’t invalidate me as a writer or supporter of horror, it just means I see things differently.

For me, it is the sound of the darkness, the emotion it invokes, which underpins many of my favourite tracks and take me to the place I need to be when I write and then there’s the videos themselves. They are mini masterpieces achieving more in a few minutes than a movie could do in an hour or two. The effect of the atmosphere created from the music and/or its related video plays on my mood, can generate more chills than the visual cine reel. Ultimately I think this is because it relies on my imagination, my feelings without being directed by a script.

You will find some of my favourite bands over on the music tab of this site. I still listen to many of those tracks but here are some more recent favourites which I regard as mini-masterpieces.

This has a post-apocalytpic feel and that repeated sound you associate with submarine depth readings, is really eerie. That note alone is more ominous than the appearance of those in the video.

This one is another from the mighty Behemoth and has a folk horror vibe to it. It was on a permanent loop as I wrote the closing chapters of my novel, The Woodcutter (now seeking a home).

Slipknot. Again anything by them takes you into the realms of the extreme. The anger in their music is often used to feed into the pages when the worst is happening to some poor soul in my story. I was lucky to see both Slipknot and Behemoth in London this year before lockdown destroyed the live music scene.

And the final one for your viewing on this occasion is Skynd. A new discovery for me and someone who focusses on the worst of humanity. Amazing results.